Machines, such as computers, switches and routers communicate to each other through established conventions known as protocols. These protocols define a set of procedural rules for information exchange over a communication medium, the rules governing the content, format, timing, sequencing, and error control of messages exchanged in a network.
Prior art network devices such as routers have supported the routing of data units of differing protocols through the identification of the applicable protocol and carrying out the necessary data unit processing in software. Such data unit processing includes reencapsulation of data units and providing the appropriate routing of the data unit through the network device.
Typical data unit transfer rates require present day switches and routers to process 4,000,000 data units per second. Software routing, as provided by routers of the prior art, are incapable of processing incoming data units at such rates without significant data loss or throttling of upstream network elements. Data loss necessitates time intensive and bandwidth consuming retransmission, while throttling requires complex flow control mechanisms and costly buffering capacity in the source network element, in the router, or both.